Free 1969

The very first ECM release (which has been reissued on CD), this trio set features pianist Mal Waldron, bassist Isla Eckinger and drummer Clarence Becton improvising quite freely on five of Waldron's compositions plus "Willow Weep For Me." The music overall is not that memorable or unique but it does have its unpredictable moments and finds Waldron really stretching himself.

Masahiko Togashi - We Now Create (1969) {Victor Japan, VICJ-23007 rel 1990}
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© 1969, 1990 Victor Japan | VICJ-23007
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Drums / Percussion

An excellent debut from drummer/percussionist Masahiko Togashi's Quartet released in 1969, a remarkable free jazz album of strong technical and creative skills, with Motoharu Yoshizawa on bass and cello, Mototeru Takagi on sax and reeds, and Masayuki Takayanagi on guitar, an important advance for the players who would go on to form influential bands like New Directions.

Albert Ayler - Music Is The Healing Force Of The Universe (1969) {Impulse! 065 383-2 rel 2003}
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© 1969, 2003 Impulse! / Verve | 065 383-2
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Saxophone

One of the last records made by avant sax legend Albert Ayler – a really mind-expanding album that's unlike anything else he ever did! By the time of the record, Ayler had made a full round trip between the New York and European jazz scenes – leaving important influences wherever he went, and trying desperately to pick up new ones the further he moved on. Here, he's working in a style that's a bit like that of Archie Shepp at the time – still steeped in free jazz and new thing ideals, but infused with a free-thinking approach to the music that allows for bold new styles and sounds.

While Otis Redding was already one of the biggest stars in soul music when he died in a tragic plane crash in 1967, as is some times the case his star rose considerably after his passing, and this 1969 release dusted off a set of unreleased tracks Redding had cut in 1967, one of which (the title cut) went on to become a sizable chart hit. Love Man doesn't hold together quite as well as Redding's best proper albums, such as Otis Blue and Complete and Unbelievable: The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul, but it also manages to avoid sounding like a collection of out-takes and leftovers; as an album it's significantly stronger than the average R&B release of similar vintage, due to Redding's indefatigable energy and conviction as a vocalist and the ever-indomitable groove of Steve Cropper, Al Jackson, Jr., and the other members of the Stax Records studio crew…

Alexander von Schlippenbach - The Living Music (1969) {Atavistic UMS/ALP231CD rel 2002}
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© 1969, 2002 Quasar/ Atavistic | UMS/ALP231CD
Jazz / Free Improvisation / Piano

Alexander von Schlippenbach, along with Peter Brötzmann and Manfred Schoof, was one of the founders of the German free jazz collective FMP Records. Like all good collectives, FMP knew how to conserve resources: the entirety of The Living Music, as well as half of Brötzmann's legendary 1969 album Nipples, was recorded by the same musicians in one day. Unlike Brötzmann's corrosive, chaotic Nipples, the six pieces on The Living Music explore the concepts of open spaces and collective improvisation at least as much as they do everyone-solos-at-once clatter.

Recorded in 1969, these sessions were released only 39 years later. They took place at the same time as the sessions for the Chris McGregor Septet album Up to Earth, also abandoned at the time and unearthed in 2008 by the Fledg'ling label. Our Prayer features McGregor in a rare small setting, a trio with bassist Barre Phillips and drummer Louis Moholo. The 45-minute set runs the gamut of the pianist's range, for an album that might have been heralded as a landmark, had it been released then. In retrospect, it offers a beautiful, progressive listen, and a valuable look into McGregor's musical thought, right before the formation of his Brotherhood of Breath…

Two years after the death of his mentor and boss, John Coltrane, and just before signing his own contract with Impulse!, Pharoah Sanders finally got around to releasing an album as a leader apart from the Impulse! family. Enlisting a cast of characters no less than 13 in number, Sanders proved that his time with Coltrane and his Impulse! debut, Tauhid, was not a fluke. Though hated by many of the jazz musicians at the time – and more jazz critics who felt Coltrane had lost his way musically the minute he put together the final quintet – Sanders followed his own muse to the edges of Eastern music and sometimes completely outside the borderlines of what could be called jazz. That said, Izipho Zam is a wonderful recording, full of the depth of vision and heartfelt soul that has informed every recording of Sanders since.